


baby, if you let me, i can help you out with all of that

by seeingrightly



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Kissing, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-13
Updated: 2018-07-13
Packaged: 2019-06-09 17:10:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15272289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seeingrightly/pseuds/seeingrightly
Summary: “A bad dream, dear?” Hermann asks quietly.“Sad one,” Newt replies.





	baby, if you let me, i can help you out with all of that

**Author's Note:**

> sos this was supposed to be about newt's issues and named after a carly rae jepsen song and here we are, dealing with hermann's issues with a title from A NE-YO SONG IDK WHAT 2 TELL U (i can't tell you which song, it'll spoil something. i hate myself)

 

 

 

Hermann looks up from his book when he hears a shuffling sound in the doorway. As he suspected, Newt is there in a pair of Hermann’s too-long pajama bottoms. The light from the lamp next to the couch just barely reflects off of the tear tracks on his cheeks.

 

When Newt sees that Hermann has noticed him - perhaps in an effort not to startle him? - he makes his way into the living room, his hands curled into the sleeves of the sweater he hadn’t taken off before going to sleep. The hours he rests now are as odd as they ever were, though often they begin earlier now.

 

Hermann sets his book aside and uncrosses his legs, reaching out as Newt gets to the couch. Newt curls up onto his side and rests his head in Hermann’s lap, pressing his face against Hermann’s thighs, balling himself up tightly like he might be able to squeeze his whole body into Hermann if he tries hard enough. Hermann would let him, is tempted to pull him up to rest more fully on his lap, but Newt knows what he wants and this is what he picked. Hermann brings one hand to Newt’s hair and rests the other on his arm, squeezing gently.

 

“A bad dream, dear?” Hermann asks quietly.

 

“Sad one,” Newt replies.

 

Hermann hums in sympathy and cards his fingers through Newt’s bedhead. Newt might tell him what the dream was about, maybe now or maybe in four days or maybe not at all. Newt shifts, wipes at his face with his sleeve and uncurls a little bit.

 

“You’re up late,” he says suddenly. “Good book?”

 

“It’s alright,” Hermann replies. “And so am I. Just not tired yet.”

 

At that, Newt rolls onto his back to look suspiciously up at Hermann’s chin. He reaches up to grab it, actually, and tilt Hermann’s face down so he can see him properly. Hermann grimaces.

 

“You’ve been off all day,” Newt says. “I assumed you were just tired but now you’re not tired at all? What’s going on?”

 

“Newton - ”

 

Newt sits up and turns around, placing himself half back in Hermann’s lap. He leans one arm on the back of the couch near Hermann’s shoulder and brings the other to the collar of Hermann’s robe, boxing him into the corner of the couch, frowning.

 

“Herm, you probably think you have a good reason for not telling me whatever you’re not telling me, but if it’s upsetting you, I wanna know what it is,” he says. “Even if you think it’s gonna upset me. Even if it  _ does _ .”

 

Before he can stop himself, Hermann brings his hand to the side of Newt’s face; he has to take him in for a disbelieving moment, the determined little frown on his face, the concern furrowing his brow, the redness still around his eyes. It is hard, sometimes, to remember that Newt didn’t get the chance to mature naturally for ten years, that these things he says are the result of therapy. Hermann should probably concede to going as well, if he expects to catch up.

 

He drops his hand and his eyes to Newt’s hand on his chest and makes himself speak.

 

“Tomorrow is the anniversary of the day you left,” he says.

 

Newt says nothing, and after a few seconds Hermann has to look up at him. Newt’s mouth is open, working slightly like he’s trying to speak and failing.

 

“I don’t,” he manages finally. “I don’t know what day you’re talking about. The way I - I know we stopped seeing each other as often but I - they didn’t let me think of it any other way.”

 

Hermann nods.

 

“I expected as much,” he says. “That’s why I didn’t want to say anything. You shouldn’t have to think about it that way.”

 

“Neither should you,” Newt replies, “but it’s still happening. Will you - please at least tell me what day you mean.”

 

Newt leans in, resting some of his weight against Hermann’s chest, and kisses him, gentle and slow. Hermann sighs into it.

 

“Please tell me,” Newt says, still close. “You’ve been so good at listening to me no matter what terrible shit I have to say, and at letting me not tell you when I don’t want to, and I - I wanna do that for you too, but you gotta start actually telling me some of it first. This didn’t just happen to me, okay?”

 

Hermann strokes his thumb along Newt’s knuckles. He doesn’t know the right balance; he doesn’t know how to support both Newt and himself, or how to be open in their relationship and protect Newt at the same time. Perhaps, then, he hasn’t really been trying to find the balance at all.

 

He doesn’t know what would qualify as a  _ good _ way to start, but he has to start somehow.

 

“It’s the day you told me you were leaving the PPDC entirely to work at Shao Industries full-time,” he says finally. “I’d been seeing you less already, but we still had a main point of contact when you stopped by the lab or we went to conferences together. And this was the end to all of that, and I knew it meant I’d barely see you anymore, and you - they were very casual about it. They announced it and left. I didn’t even get told one-on-one.”

 

Hermann does not like self-pity. He never has. He feels what he feels, but he refuses to spend time feeling sorry for himself  _ about _ what he feels. Any other year, on this anniversary, he would let himself think about what happened, what was still happening, more so than he would let himself do the rest of the year. And then he would move past it.

 

He doesn’t like pity from others, either, and while he doesn’t want Newt to feel guilty about what happened, he also doesn’t want his pity. What he gets when he looks up, though, is a firm kiss to the cheekbone, Newt’s scruff rubbing against the skin there uncomfortably. Newt brings both his arms around Hermann and presses his nose into Hermann’s hair.

 

“That’s what I was dreaming,” Newt says, his voice strangled. “I dreamed it from everyone’s point of view, yours and mine and the precursors, so I couldn’t lock down exactly what anyone was thinking, but I - I was feeling your sadness. I don’t know if it was from the memory or from - from you out here?”

 

Hermann rubs his hand up and down Newt’s back and shifts them so that Newt is sitting more comfortably on top of him, taking his time to process.

 

“I suppose it could have been either,” he says finally.

 

Is it fair to classify it as anything other than empathy when they live in and out of one another’s minds? Is that something he can resent?

 

“I’m sorry to have woken you, darling,” he adds, and Newt pulls back to put a hand on either side of his face.

 

“Don’t,” Newt says. “I want you to talk about it. I don’t want you to apologize and feel guilty for just being a person with feelings.”

 

Ah. That’s something Hermann could surely track all the way back to his childhood, if he were so inclined. If a therapist asked him to.

 

“I will try,” Hermann says. “You’re working very hard to get better and be healthy and I need to do that too.”

 

“Okay, yeah, but do it for  _ you _ , babe,” Newt says. “I’m gonna be okay if you stop thinking about me long enough to think about yourself, I promise.”

 

That hits Hermann hard, hard enough that for a moment he thinks he’s going to cry. As it is, he doesn’t, and instead he wraps his hand around the back of Newt’s head and pulls him into a fierce kiss. Newt makes a startled but pleased noise and leans into Hermann, putting more of his weight on him. Hermann pulls back eventually, resting their foreheads together.

 

“You’ve been trying your damnedest to take care of me too and I haven’t been letting you,” he says. “I’m not going to do that anymore.”

 

“Good,” Newt says firmly, but then he gets that infuriating look on his face that only ever means he’s about to quote a song lyric. “Let me love you, baby.”

 

Hermann glares and grabs at Newt’s hips like he’s going to dump him unceremoniously off of his lap, and Newt lets out a cackle and wraps his arms too tightly around Hermann’s shoulders and head.

 

“Get  _ off _ of me,” Hermann says, muffled, but he brings his arms back up around Newt’s back, and Newt loosens his grip so that they’re face to face again.

 

He still has an outrageous smirk on his face, so Hermann kisses it away.

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr at [ch3ry1b10ss0m](http://ch3ry1b10ss0m.tumblr.com) or at my brand new pacrim specific twitter, [coralbluenmbr5](http://twitter.com/coralbluenmbr5)


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